In 1919, exactly 100 years ago, the great Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote a poem called “The Second Coming.” He was motivated by his fear of rising fascism in Europe, and fear as well of British troops sent to his Irish soil to quell an uprising of Irish republicans. His poem was prescient then. The question arises whether it is now.

What is happening now, here in America, and also in countries around the globe, is definitely the most chaos I have ever read or experienced in my lifetime. That is why the first verse of Yeats’ poem speaks so clearly to me:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer,

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.”

Nanette Kaaumoana

Kakaako

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